thence diagonally through the old French quarter toward the French
Market. In a narrow alley giving upon the levee he finally found what he
was looking for; a dingy sailors' barber's shop. The barber was a negro,
fat, unctuous and sleepy-looking; and he was alone.

"Yes, sah; shave, boss?" asked the negro, bowing and scraping a foot
when Griswold entered.

"No; a hair-cut." The customer produced a silver half-dollar. "Go
somewhere and get me a cigar to smoke while you are doing it. Get a good
one, if you have to go to Canal Street," he added, climbing into the
rickety chair.

The fat negro shuffled out, scenting tips. The moment he was out of
sight, Griswold took up the scissors and began to hack awkwardly at his
beard and mustache; awkwardly, but swiftly and with well-considered
purpose. The result was a fairly complete metamorphosis easily wrought.
In place of the trim beard and curling mustache there was a rough
stubble, stiff and uneven, like that on the face of a man who had
neglected to shave for a week or two.

"There, I think that will answer," he told himself, standing back before
the cracked looking-glass to get the general effect. "And it is decently
original. The professional cracksman would probably have shaved,
whereupon the first amateur detective he met would reconstruct the beard
on the sunburned lines. Now for a pawnbroker; and the more avaricious he
happens to be, the better he will serve the purpose."

He went to the door and looked up and down the alley. The negro was not
yet in sight, and Griswold walked rapidly away in the direction opposite
to that taken by the obliging barber.

A pawnbroker's shop of the kind required was not far to seek in that
locality, and when it was found, Griswold drove a hard bargain with the
Portuguese Jew behind the counter. The pledge he offered was the suit he
was wearing, and the bargaining concluded in an exchange of the still
serviceable business suit for a pair of butternut trousers, a
second-hand coat too short in the sleeves, a flannel shirt, a cap, and a
red handkerchief; these and a sum of ready money, the smallness of which
he deplored piteously before he would consent to accept it.

The effect of the haggling was exactly what Griswold had prefigured. The
Portuguese, most suspicious of his tribe, suspecting everything but the
truth, flatly accused his customer of having stolen the pledge. And when
Griswold departed without denying the charge, suspicion